The invention relates to an apparatus for feeding a machine with a plurality of webs of material from a plurality of web supply rolls. More particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus having a plurality of roll stands, positioned opposite one another in pairs, with each pair adapted to rotatably support a single web supply roll. The roll stands are arranged to hold a plurality of web supply rolls with their spool axes in parallel.
Apparatus of this type is already known in which previously unpacked and inspected new web rolls can be supplied successively to successive pairs of roll stands from a loading car carrying only one roll at a time. To change rolls, the operator stops the machine that is to be fed, severs the webs of material manually close to the roll core, carries the cut ends to web holding means in the form of suction cups disposed fixedly overhead, removes the roll cores from the released roll holding means, carries the new rolls successively to the pairs of stands by means of the loading car, raises each roll to the level of the roll holding means, clamps it on, brushes it with an adhesive at an appropriate point on the roll circumference or applies to this surface a double-sided adhesive tape, takes the corresponding cut web ends from the web holding means and presses them against the prepared point of adhesion on the roll circumference in order thus to produce a splice. This entire roll changing procedure takes a relatively large amount of time which is lost to production.
The invention is addressed to the problem of considerably reducing the lost time due to roll changing in an apparatus of the kind described above.